0:15

Pushkin.

0:21

Hey, it's doctor Laurie Santos here. The

0:23

science says that giving a dollar away can

0:25

make you feel happier than spending on yourself,

0:27

and if you're in the mood to make every dollar you donate

0:30

count this holiday season, the Happiness Lab

0:32

has teamed up with GiveDirectly dot org.

0:34

If we all pull together, we can make a huge

0:37

difference to one African village in twenty

0:39

twenty four.

0:39

Kibobo, I think is a great place if people

0:41

want somewhere to support people there

0:44

are living in really desperate

0:46

situation. They lack almost everything.

0:49

Rory Stewart from GiveDirectly dot org

0:51

says money from Happiness Lab listeners will

0:53

go directly to the people of Kebobo in

0:55

Rwanda, who'll be loved to decide on their own

0:57

how to best spend it to improve their lives.

1:00

Getting a little bit of cash is what will allow

1:02

you to fix your house, buy a cow

1:04

which could provide milk for your family, get

1:06

a relative who's ill to the local

1:08

hospital. These things that are genuinely life

1:11

transforming.

1:12

So if you can spare just a few bucks and want

1:14

to join me and other fans of the show to help

1:16

the folks in Cabobo, then go to this website

1:19

give directly dot org slash happiness.

1:21

That's give directly dot org

1:24

slash happiness. Just a few dollars

1:26

can make.

1:26

A huge difference.

1:28

Happy Giving, Hey

1:31

Happiness Lab Listeners, Today we're bringing

1:33

you an extra special treat. It's an episode

1:35

from another podcast that I think you'll like a

1:37

lot. It's the new Build the Life You Want

1:39

series from Oprah's SuperSoul.

1:42

In the series, Oprah and Harvard professor

1:44

Arthur Brooks offer listeners a better

1:46

understanding of the science behind happiness,

1:49

which is something that we constantly aim for

1:51

on our show. Check out the episode because

1:53

you'll walk away with tips on how to make your own lives

1:55

happier. You can also listen to the Build

1:57

the Life you Want series on Oprah's SuperSoul

2:00

wherever you get your podcasts. Now

2:02

here's the episode.

2:04

Thanks to the Heart for supporting this special

2:07

bonus episode of SuperSoul. So

2:18

Arthur Brooks, Arthur, welcome

2:21

back, Thank you, and I'll started right here. During

2:23

the pandemic, I came across a column in

2:25

the Atlantic magazine and noticed

2:28

that I started to look forward to reading it every

2:30

week.

2:30

It's called how to Build a Life by Arthur

2:32

Brooks.

2:33

I knew I had to meet the man who wrote such

2:36

insightful advice, So,

2:38

Arthur Brooks, it is my great pleasure

2:41

to meet you.

2:42

I am such a huge fan

2:44

of yours.

2:45

Arthur Brooks is a world renowned social

2:47

scientist.

2:48

Happiness is really a combination of

2:50

three things, enjoyment,

2:53

satisfaction, and meaning.

2:55

The author of many books, including the number

2:57

one New York Times bestseller From Strength

3:00

to Strength.

3:00

I'm a big fan of how to Build a Life

3:02

column in The Atlantic. I find myself sharing

3:04

with my kids all the time.

3:06

And a professor at Harvard Business School who's

3:08

course onhappyess is so popular there's always

3:10

a long wait list thought.

3:12

About it and I thought, it's not about them.

3:15

It's not about Harvard. This is about

3:17

everybody who needs the science of happiness.

3:19

The whole world is of the waiting list for this class.

3:21

This year, Professor Brooks and I

3:24

teamed up to co write a book we call

3:26

Build a Life You Want The Art and Science

3:28

of getting Happier, and I am very

3:30

happy to say a debuted at the top

3:32

of the New York Times bestseller list.

3:34

We cooked up the whole book here in

3:36

this room. It's really it's it's

3:39

incredibly gratifying, And isn't it gratifying?

3:41

Also?

3:41

I mean I was really excited to hit number one

3:43

on the New York Times Bestsellers. I mean,

3:45

one of the reasons why it's so gratifying

3:48

is because, first of all, number one is always gratifying.

3:50

R a nice number.

3:51

It's a nice, nice ring to it.

3:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. But it also

3:55

means that the work that we

3:57

conceived in this room was

3:59

well received, right, yeah.

4:02

You remember we talked about it. We discussed

4:06

not what's going to be the book, but the why of the book.

4:08

This was the big thing that we did here. We said, okay,

4:11

what's the point. What are we trying to do? And

4:13

it was lift people up and bring them together

4:15

with science and ideas.

4:17

So we decided to do a three part series

4:19

y'all to dive further

4:22

into the book here on Super

4:24

Soul, because my intention for this

4:26

platform has always been to

4:29

enhance the human experience and to

4:32

bring you information that

4:34

will open up your life.

4:36

So I know that you listeners are interested

4:39

in learning new ways to explore

4:42

a life with meaning and purpose, which

4:44

is what you, Arthur, are all about and before

4:46

we get started, I think you should tell everyone

4:49

actually about your day job or what

4:52

you do.

4:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, So my day job is I'm

4:54

a teacher. I'm a college professor.

4:57

I teach the science of happiness

4:59

at the Harvard Business School. I

5:01

also teach at Harvard Kennedy School, which trains

5:04

people to go work in government. And I

5:06

research and think and teach

5:08

about behavior, human behavior,

5:11

what motivates people to do what they do. I'm a social scientist.

5:13

Yes, I was going to say, you don't just teach

5:15

there you are Actually.

5:16

Yeah, I'm a yeah so, and I've been

5:18

a social scientist for the past thirty years. That's what I've

5:21

been doing with my life, EHD social science indeed,

5:23

indeed, and so that's and I teach. People

5:25

ask ask you know, you're a professor.

5:28

I say, yeah, Harvard Busines School. They say, what do you teach accounting,

5:30

finance, marketing, supply chain

5:32

management, you know, something really practical

5:34

like that. I say, no, I teach happiness. And

5:36

they think I'm lying, Yeah, but it's

5:39

it's I teach happiness with the same seriousness

5:41

that you would teach supply chain management. Look,

5:43

your your life is an enterprise your

5:45

life is your startup. Treat it

5:47

as such, treat it with seriousness, you

5:49

know, treat the inside of your head the same way you would

5:51

treat your p and L statement. Yeah, is the bottom

5:54

line.

5:54

Your life is your startup, the biggest startup you're

5:56

ever going.

5:56

To have, totally is the best enterprise you could be part of, and the most

5:59

serious one of that.

6:00

Yeah.

6:00

So on this series, we're exploring the ideas

6:03

in the book where Arthur the

6:05

author for science based

6:07

practices and wisdom

6:10

that anybody can use to become happy.

6:12

I call it happier nest.

6:15

It was so good that you coined that helpful to

6:17

me because for the longest time, people

6:19

would say, you know, the

6:22

goal is happiness, and I would say, no, it's getting

6:24

happier, but that doesn't have a ring to it. And I told you

6:26

that for the first time and you said, so, the goal.

6:27

Is happier nes happierness.

6:29

It's the right word.

6:31

Yeah.

6:31

Yeah, I love it, uh huh. And now people are

6:33

saying it.

6:33

My students are saying, yeah, we need a T shirt.

6:35

Yeah.

6:36

Before we dive into the book, let's talk about

6:38

your own journey though, because people want

6:40

to know your story, because you are the professor

6:43

of happiness and how did you get here?

6:44

At age fifty five?

6:45

You left a very successful career and

6:49

you were chief executive of a think tank,

6:51

and now then you started studying

6:54

happiness. Was it to bring greater happiness to

6:56

yourself?

6:57

For sure and other people? You

6:59

go through kind of a not necessarily

7:01

a dark night of the soul, but at certain points of

7:04

your life they're hinge points when you have to ask yourself,

7:06

why am I doing what I'm doing? And what

7:08

is mission of my own life? And the truth

7:11

is, as I thought about it and prayed about

7:13

it and talk to the people I love

7:15

about it, it was very clear the

7:18

mission of my life is to lift people

7:20

up and bring them together and ideas

7:22

of love and happiness using this.

7:24

Well, you were also doing that with the think tank, right,

7:27

I.

7:27

Was trying, But it was good. It

7:29

was good. I was grateful for having done

7:31

that. I did that for eleven years, but it was

7:33

time for somebody else to do that. And at fifty five,

7:35

I still had plenty of still had plenty of

7:38

gas in the tank, and I wanted to use

7:40

everything that I knew for

7:42

other people and quite frankly for

7:44

me too. I wanted to dig into this thing

7:46

called that we now call happierness

7:49

and see whether or not it was achievable in my own life,

7:51

and if it was, could I bring it to others.

7:53

Well, you know, studies are showing that America

7:55

is in a happiness slump. I don't think you

7:57

even need a study to figure that

7:59

out. You just look around you, or you turn on

8:01

your computer, you look at your

8:04

phone. I mean, the news,

8:06

the conspiracy theories,

8:09

what is going on.

8:10

Yeah, no, it's true. I mean the data are unambiguous

8:13

and the experience that we all have that it feels like people are

8:15

less happy. It's true. And there's kind

8:17

of two things that we need to understand there. You

8:20

could say that there's problems in

8:22

the climate and problems in the weather. The

8:25

climate has been changing for happiness

8:27

for decades now, since the late

8:30

eighties, maybe the early nineties. People have been gradually

8:32

getting a little less happy year after year after year,

8:34

just a little tiny bit. And that has to do with the fact

8:36

that people are less likely to live

8:38

a spiritual or religious life or find a life of meaning

8:41

in those institutions. They're less likely to have

8:43

a close relationship with their families. People have

8:45

fewer and fewer friends who know them well. People have

8:47

less of a sense that they're serving

8:50

others with their work. That's the climate,

8:52

and that's been a problem for a long time. Then there's

8:54

weather storms. There have been

8:56

two big storms in the past couple of decades

8:59

that we have to pay attention to. The first

9:01

was around two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine.

9:03

Now, I know everybody watching us is like, oh, obviously

9:05

the financial crisis, that wasn't

9:07

it.

9:08

I thought it was.

9:08

It was social media. Same

9:11

time. That's when everybody

9:13

started looking at social media. Everybody, right,

9:15

just nine.

9:16

That's when I got on what used to be Twitter.

9:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the artist formerly

9:20

known as Twitter. Yeah yeah, yeah, yea yeah, yeah, exactly

9:23

right. And that's when when and a couple of

9:25

things were happening. So so Twitter, for example, became

9:27

a platform for people to be intensely negative.

9:29

Instagram is not the same way. It's more

9:31

of a platform where people compare themselves to

9:33

others. But that had a big impact,

9:36

especially on young people, especially on women

9:38

and girls fifteen to twenty five years

9:40

old. It created a new kind

9:43

of culture that was intensely comparative

9:45

and problematic.

9:46

So social media actually, where

9:49

people think it's bringing you closer together

9:51

and you're communicating up Facebook, it's actually

9:54

made people less happy.

9:56

Lonelier, lonely. Here's the weird thing.

9:59

It's when you're super hungry and

10:01

it's like, oh, man, I haven't eaten, you know, I haven't eight

10:03

hours an hour and there, and you passed by a fast

10:05

food place. Yeah, you're like, good, Yeah,

10:07

that'll get the job done. And so you gorge yourself

10:10

and your stuff. You do feel so good. An

10:12

hour later, you're hungry again. What's

10:14

what happened? The answer is you didn't meet

10:16

your nutrient needs. All you metage your

10:18

caloric needs, and so the result is you stay

10:20

hungry even though you don't need the calories.

10:23

Social media is the junk food of

10:25

social life. It's like getting all

10:28

of your calories.

10:28

That is a tweetable moment, but we don't tweet anymore.

10:31

We x call it.

10:34

But so that's that's like getting

10:36

all your meals at seven eleven.

10:38

Social media is the junk food.

10:40

Of social life. Social

10:42

media is the junk food or social life. You'll get too

10:44

many calories and not enough nutrients. That's

10:47

the reason you'll binge and get Lonelier. Yes,

10:49

that's a problem. Yes, And a lot of young

10:51

people have never developed in a way

10:53

where they can finally figure out how to use

10:55

it responsibly.

10:57

What's going to happen to the generation that was

10:59

born at that time, and that's

11:02

all they've ever known.

11:03

We don't know. That's a big social experiment.

11:05

That's a massive social experiment.

11:07

Now we're in the midstuff right now.

11:08

Yeah, it's not as if social media is all evil.

11:11

I mean you can use it responsibly.

11:12

Absolutely.

11:13

If you would not let somebody into your

11:15

house who bears you ill will you shouldn't

11:17

let them into your head. And that means you shouldn't

11:20

be looking at the social media where somebody can be tweeting

11:22

at you or exing at you or yeah, and

11:24

telling you that you know some you're

11:26

that. Frankly, that's a big problem. That's

11:29

the storm, that's the short of a century.

11:30

Wow, So let's

11:33

get happier.

11:34

Let's do that.

11:35

Let's get happier.

11:36

On page five, you say happiness

11:38

is not a destination, Happiness is

11:40

a direction. I know that was a shift

11:43

in mindset for many who are reading

11:45

this book.

11:45

Can you expand a little bit on that?

11:47

Yeah, And you know, this is the

11:49

problem with happiness is such a funny thing because

11:52

we all want it. Every philosopher

11:54

and theologian has talked about it. Everybody.

11:56

I mean, how many times have people said

11:58

that on your show?

11:59

I know that's what I say in the beginning of the book that thousands

12:02

of times. Well, I became interested in the subject

12:04

because every time I would sit with the audience and

12:06

I'd say, what do you want? Everybody would always

12:08

say multiple people would answer,

12:11

I just want to be happy. I just want to be happy. But

12:13

yet when you ask them, what does that look like

12:15

for them? Hard to define for

12:17

sure.

12:17

And part of the reason is because it's not something that

12:20

you can define in any meaningful way.

12:23

We think it's a feeling, we think it's a destination.

12:26

It isn't either. You know, happy

12:28

feelings are nothing more than emotions, and emotions are

12:30

nothing more than information that we need

12:32

in reaction to the outside environment. And as

12:35

a destination, what would you why

12:37

would you want to be completely happy as

12:39

a destination? You'd be dead in a

12:41

week. Because you actually need negative

12:43

emotions and experiences to train you to keep

12:45

you vigilant, to keep you safe, and

12:47

to be happy.

12:48

Yeah, to keep you alert, to keep you, to keep

12:50

you on it.

12:51

Yeah, yeah, I mean maybe when I dine I'm in heaven, I

12:53

see the face of God, the beatific vision

12:55

will be pure happiness. But on earth, I'm telling you,

12:57

I need my negative emotions to keep

12:59

me alive and safe. I need my negative experiences

13:02

to learn and grow. And so that's what people.

13:04

They want to stay alive and

13:06

safe, but they don't want the feeling

13:09

that keep them alive and safe. And that's

13:11

this conflict that they have, which is why

13:13

they feel so unsettled.

13:15

Okay, So I think, particularly

13:18

in this world of social media,

13:20

people think if I just get that, I

13:23

mean I see people toasting

13:25

on private jets, and I see

13:27

them, you know, on beaches

13:29

and you know, hair their

13:31

hair blowing in the wind and all that, and people think, well,

13:33

if I just had that, I could be happy.

13:36

But we know.

13:38

You have the science to back it up that

13:40

they're really four pillars, and if you don't

13:43

have all of those pillars

13:45

working in your life, you will eventually

13:48

end up feeling not necessarily

13:51

sad, but lonely or distanced or

13:53

disconnected.

13:54

So the four pillars, there.

13:55

Are four pillars. There's kind of the four pillars

13:57

you think that you need, and those four pillars that

13:59

you really do need. The idols, the

14:01

things that look right but aren't, or money, power,

14:04

pleasure and fame. Those are

14:06

the things that mother Nature said, you get those, you're going

14:08

to be happy.

14:09

Money, power, pleasure and fame.

14:10

That's right. But she lies. Mother Nature lies. She lies

14:12

a lot because she wants us to keep running, run and run

14:14

and run and run it right.

14:16

Because is my mother nature telling us that?

14:18

Or is society telling ussel? Well, so I think mother nature

14:20

is telling us that. It's the

14:22

four pillars.

14:23

Well, mother nature gives us these

14:25

imperatives because she wants us and wants

14:27

us to be hungry, you know, and she wants

14:29

us to survive and pass on our genes. Yes, and the way

14:32

that you do that is money, power, pleasure, and fame,

14:34

right, And she doesn't want us to figure out that those

14:36

things never really satisfy, so

14:38

that we'll keep running and running and running. That's

14:40

called the hedonic treadmill. What we

14:42

really want, and this is backed up by

14:46

a lot of psychology, neuroscience, behavioral

14:48

economics, all the research that we want is

14:50

that there's kind of four things that are the virtuous

14:53

things that we should be looking for. The Mother Nature doesn't necessarily

14:55

tell us but that if we take the divine

14:57

path in life religious

14:59

are not religiously understood. A better path

15:01

in life will be happy. And

15:04

those are our faith, family, friends,

15:07

and work that serves. Now,

15:10

if you give any teenage kid the choice

15:12

between money, power, pleasure and honor or faith,

15:15

faith, family, good

15:17

friends and good times and a work that serves others,

15:19

I mean you're going to take yeah, right, I mean our

15:22

society does aid in a bed. Mother Nature's

15:24

lie. Yeah, because you know, the marketing

15:26

colossus tells us that if you get that

15:29

car man, you're gonna be really happy. If

15:31

you get that job, you get that money, if you get that one

15:33

hundred thousand Instagram followers or whatever your

15:35

number happens to be, it's never high enough, by the way,

15:37

you're gonna be happy. But that's a

15:40

lie, is the bottom. There's nothing wrong

15:42

with those things. Yeah, But if

15:44

you get those things, if we are so lucky to get

15:46

those things, they should only ever be in

15:48

service of the Big Four, the Good Four.

15:51

They should only ever be in service. They should be intermediate

15:54

goals or rest stop in the New Jersey Turnpike,

15:56

Manhattan. Where you're trying to get is

15:59

faith, faith, and by that, Yeah,

16:01

how do you.

16:02

Use that money, power, pleasure in fame

16:04

to enhance your faith, family

16:08

and work and friendship and friendships.

16:10

Basically your love, Yes, your love and

16:12

your life and the love and the lives of the people

16:14

around you. That's really what those those worldly

16:16

goals should be used for if you want to have any shot

16:18

it through happiness. Yeah.

16:19

I know we have a lot of questions from

16:21

our readers, readers, people who

16:24

have already read the book.

16:25

I'm so excited. Yeah,

16:27

Okay. Eric from Denver, Hello, Hi,

16:31

I'm.

16:31

Eric, and I learned from this book that

16:34

you can't be happy, but you can be happier

16:37

and that really resonated with me because

16:39

it makes happiness feel like a thing I can incrementally

16:42

work towards every day versus this big

16:44

place to arrive.

16:46

My question is for you, Oprah.

16:48

I'm wondering how as you've gotten older,

16:51

your approach to getting happier has

16:53

changed.

16:55

Thank you for noticing that I've gotten older,

16:57

Eric, Thank you. I think that's

16:59

actually I like that.

17:02

Question, Eric, because as

17:05

I've gotten older, and one of the reasons

17:07

why I was so excited about working

17:10

with Arthur here is because

17:13

Arthur you confirmed my

17:16

belief system.

17:17

So I have been. I have known

17:19

since I was.

17:20

A kid that life is better

17:22

when you share it, and I learned

17:24

that with my first three Musketeers bar Because

17:28

growing up poor, I so seldom got

17:30

candy. I would save it until

17:32

like cousins came by, so because

17:34

it tasted better when I could share it.

17:36

And now I know Eric.

17:38

That that is one of the principles of

17:41

enjoyment, which is what

17:44

actually defined happiness, enjoyment,

17:46

satisfaction, and purpose.

17:48

And so being able.

17:49

So to answer your question, I

17:51

would say that now that I

17:53

know that the science actually backs me

17:56

up on life is better when

17:58

you share it, I want to share

18:00

it more so it used to be I would

18:02

just love doing a random act of kindness

18:04

or doing something meaningful

18:07

for somebody that would help them in

18:09

their lives or enhance their lives.

18:12

Now I make it a habit.

18:13

It's a part of my spiritual practice

18:17

to include the enjoyment

18:20

for myself of making other people

18:22

happier. So I would say, as I've

18:24

gotten older, that's what I've actually

18:26

learned about how to enjoy

18:29

happiness, not just for

18:31

myself, but how to spread it to other people.

18:34

So one of the things we talk

18:36

about in the book is how enjoyment

18:40

and satisfaction and

18:42

purpose are the macro nutrients

18:46

of happiness. So let's talk about enjoyment

18:48

first and the difference between pleasure and enjoyment.

18:50

Yeah, this is a big mistake that a lot of people make. I mean, one of

18:52

the things that we do in the book is we disabuse

18:54

people of mistake and notions of happiness. Happiness

18:57

is not a feeling. Happiness is not a destination. It's

18:59

a direction or a happy eriness, etc. And

19:01

another one has to do with this idea that I'm

19:03

going to be happy if I can just hit the pleasure level over

19:05

and over and over again. Yes, here's some words

19:07

that have never been uttered. I'm really

19:10

happy because of methamphetamine. Nobody's

19:12

ever said that. That is not what

19:15

people say. And the reason is because if

19:17

you use illicted drugs and

19:19

drugs of abuse, you're going to hit the pleasure lever.

19:21

It's going to feel good, but it's

19:23

not going to make you happy. It's going to lead to addiction.

19:26

It's going to lead to a super physiological

19:29

level of dopamine in your brain. And

19:31

all that does is gives you a tiny little reward and

19:33

then goes away, tiny little reward and it goes away.

19:35

That's why you have to keep getting more and more and more and

19:38

it doesn't.

19:38

Yeah, and then what happens is because

19:41

that becomes an incredibly isolated

19:43

thing.

19:44

And that's regardless if it's methamphetamine,

19:46

or if it's your work, or if it's shopping, or if

19:48

it's whatever it is on this that's just

19:50

giving you pleasure for sure.

19:51

I mean that can be gambling, that can be that can be

19:54

eating, that can be all kinds of things that whatever

19:56

your thing is. Yeah, and here's

19:58

how you know if it's a problem. Yeah, if you're

20:00

hitting the pleasure lever over and over and over again and

20:02

you're alone, then you know there's a

20:04

problem. That's what it is. And

20:07

that actually there inside

20:09

the diagnosis, there is the solution.

20:11

That's why you know. That's why Vandheuser Busch

20:13

doesn't have a beer commercial of a guy alone

20:16

in his apartment pounding a twelve pack. That's

20:19

why that's not the ad. That's because

20:21

that doesn't lead to happiness, that leads to problem,

20:23

doesn't.

20:24

That looks sad and pitiful.

20:25

Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, what they have

20:27

is a guy with his buddies making

20:30

a memory, the guy with his

20:32

friends or his family making a memory.

20:34

And therein lies the answer

20:36

to this is not that you've got.

20:38

To because lots of advertising does that

20:40

totally.

20:40

That's all the beer commercials do because they

20:42

want you to be happier when they use their when you use

20:45

their product, and the reasons they want you to

20:47

have enjoyment, not just pleasure. Now,

20:49

a lot of the problems that we have in kind of a puritanical

20:51

culture about this would say that the solution is

20:54

if you're hitting the pleasure lever repeatedly

20:56

by yourself, get rid of the pleasure lever.

20:59

But that's not necessarily the.

21:00

Solution, because the pleasure has its pleasures.

21:02

Totally, you need to add two things

21:05

you need to add in order to have enjoyment. Exactly,

21:08

you have to the source of pleasure plus

21:10

people that you love plus

21:12

memories. Now, what you're doing is

21:14

you're moving the experience of the pleasure

21:16

from the limbic system of your brain, which is

21:19

deep down evolved over a forty

21:21

million year period. All it is sending signals

21:23

to you about how to survive.

21:24

I have the perfect example of this.

21:25

So all my life, from the

21:27

moment I was working in Baltimore

21:30

making twenty two thousand dollars a year, my

21:32

first vacation I spent on going

21:35

to a spa.

21:36

So I love a spa ying.

21:38

So I've been to mini spas by myself, were

21:40

you know, massages, the whole pedicare,

21:42

manicure, or the whole thing walking around in Europe.

21:45

And this past April

21:48

I went spa ing. I did a thing that

21:50

when the first spy I went to, there

21:53

was a very wealthy woman there. I remember

21:56

a Getty I think was her name, and she was there

21:58

with all of her friends, and I thought,

22:01

wow, what would that be like to

22:03

have enough money to go with all

22:06

of your friends for fun? It looks certainly

22:08

more fun than me walking around alone in my bathroom.

22:11

And this past April I did that

22:13

with dear friends. And

22:15

it's the most fun I ever had

22:18

at.

22:19

A spat because you took the pleasure, yeah,

22:21

added the people and made the memories. And

22:23

we made the memories exactly right. That's

22:25

enjoyment. Now. That means you don't have to forego

22:28

the sources of pleasure. You have to add the people

22:30

in the memory.

22:30

Now you got to take the plus memory

22:33

people makes it exactly, makes it enjoyment.

22:34

Pleasure plus people plus memory. Now you can mess

22:37

this up, right, You can have all your friends can be drunks,

22:40

you know, and they can kind of then you can kind

22:42

of go into a cycle like, yeah, a lot of people, you

22:44

know, So I drink too much and he drinks too much, and we all

22:46

drink too much and we all get really drunk together. Yeah. So I

22:48

mean, obviously there are exceptions to this, but that's

22:51

the basic rule of phone. You don't have to

22:53

do less, you have to add more. This is not a

22:55

subtractive formula. This is an additive

22:57

formula. Almost everything in the science of happiness

22:59

is additive. You've got to add more

23:02

ingredients to make it good.

23:03

So I think this is so great whatever it is

23:05

you So this is this is an easy formula.

23:07

Whatever it is you take pleasure in,

23:09

yeah, find a way to

23:12

add other people into

23:14

that pleasure, and it becomes more enjoyable

23:16

when you're making and you're making memories, babe, that's

23:18

right.

23:18

And so you know, I'm not saying don't go to Vegas,

23:21

just don't go alone. Four o'clock

23:23

in the morning, going by yourself. No, no,

23:26

no, no, go with your buddies, go

23:28

with your spouse, go with your friends. And

23:30

by the way, if you're being compulsive, they're going to say,

23:32

dude, really, yeah,

23:35

can you afford that?

23:36

Yeah?

23:36

And you're going to want to have more fun with the company,

23:39

as opposed to compulsively pulling the lever again

23:41

and again and again to get that little spritzer

23:43

of dopamine onto the nuclear succumbence

23:45

of your brain giving you that little relief, and that just

23:48

goes away and you're still by yourself.

23:50

So enjoyment is one of the components.

23:52

And in order to enjoy you've got to add other

23:54

people and make it more conscious. Exactly

23:56

right, Okay, Monica, what's your question

23:59

from Michigan?

24:01

Hi, my name is Monica.

24:03

And when you talked

24:05

about the difference between pleasure

24:08

and enjoyment in the book, that really struck

24:10

me and I realized that I tend

24:12

to seek pleasure to cope with disappointment

24:15

or sadness or anger. So

24:18

I would love to hear some examples from both

24:20

of you, Arthur and Oprah, around how

24:22

to disrupt that pattern

24:25

when, as you say, pleasure is easy

24:27

and enjoyment is hard.

24:30

That's good disruption, right, I mean the whole

24:32

idea is you get it. She knows. I mean, by the way,

24:34

the first she's good. Yeah, Monica

24:37

is good because Monica realized she already

24:39

has got knowledge about this. The

24:41

basis of getting happier is knowledge.

24:43

Yeah, you know, this is the thing. A lot of people are just like, I'm gonna

24:45

feel let me feel something different.

24:47

No, no, no.

24:47

The Dali Lama says, think more, feel

24:50

less, okay, which is really important. So that's

24:52

why we wrote a book that has a lot of science in

24:54

it because people need this particular knowledge. And she's really

24:56

really on her way, and she understands that there's

24:58

a cycle and hitting the lever to get

25:01

the pleasure, hitting the lever to get the pleasure, you have to disrupt

25:03

that cycle. That gets back to just what we were

25:05

talking about before. You disrupt that

25:07

cycle with love with another

25:10

person, with people that you care about.

25:12

You add the person who disrupt that that

25:14

little relationship, and you talk to people who suffer from addiction.

25:17

Yeah. One of the things that I always talk about is that the

25:19

addiction was like it was like my

25:21

closest relationship you know

25:24

it was it was like.

25:25

It was like my way. They were consumed by it.

25:27

Yeah, for sure, it was my lover. It

25:29

was my best friend. And you know, I wanted

25:31

to go away with my best friend, which

25:34

was booze or whatever

25:36

it happened to be, gambling the want I wanted

25:38

to I wanted to go away with them. You disrupt that

25:41

by adding a real, living human

25:43

being. That's how you disrupt the cyclist

25:46

at a person you love and.

25:47

Also accepting unhappiness. You say,

25:50

without unhappiness, you wouldn't

25:52

survive, learn or come up.

25:54

With good ideas.

25:54

Even if you could get rid of your unhappiness,

25:57

it would be a huge mistake. The secret of the best

25:59

life is to accept your

26:01

unhappiness so you can learn and grow

26:03

and manage the feelings that result. I

26:05

think that's hard for people because what does

26:07

that mean? To accept the unhappy? When you

26:09

say accept, it often feels like, so, I'm

26:12

just supposed to like do nothing. I'm

26:14

just supposed to accept it. I'm supposed to surrender

26:16

to it. I'm unhappy.

26:18

Yeah, No, that's that's not It's not the idea.

26:20

The truth is that you need to accept it as normal.

26:22

And this is A big part of our culture

26:26

today is that we think that if we

26:28

feel unhappiness or pain, there's something wrong

26:30

with us, that there's evidence that something's

26:32

broken. If you feel unhappy, you know, you

26:34

go to if you're in college, you go to campus counseling

26:36

and say, I'm really feeling anxious and I'm really feeling

26:38

depressed. And you know, my university

26:41

it's a really hard university. If you're not anxious

26:43

when you're at Harvard University, that's the problem.

26:45

That means you're not working hard enough. Maybe that's when

26:47

you need therapy. Quite frankly, you know, And I

26:50

talk to young people and says, feeling really anxious

26:52

about my studies. Of course you are.

26:54

That's a normal thing. That's the acceptance,

26:57

the acceptance of the fact that you have feelings,

26:59

including negative feelings, and you'd be dead

27:01

if you didn't.

27:02

Who's walking around at Harvard not feeling anxious?

27:04

Totally totally mean, by the way, including the faculty.

27:07

Yeah, yeah, tell, it's like my students don't quite figure

27:09

out that I'm like freaking out too.

27:12

Gane from Atlanta has a question about regret.

27:14

Jane hi oprah

27:16

hi Artha.

27:18

I'm Jane build the life

27:20

you want has been the gift that I didn't even

27:22

know that I needed. On page twenty,

27:24

when I read that people who

27:26

do not regret tend to make the same

27:28

mistake over and over again, I

27:31

thought, that's me. When

27:34

I was eighteen years old, I failed

27:36

an exam that would enable me to get into the university

27:39

and my dad said, no, crying, move

27:41

forward.

27:42

And I didn't.

27:43

Now my question is, how do I

27:45

today begin to use regret as

27:48

a tool when my African upbringing

27:50

has dictated that I move

27:52

forward and get on with it.

27:56

I love that.

27:57

It's a great question.

27:57

That is great.

27:58

It really is good because that's a lot of advice

28:00

that we give our children. You know. It's like suck

28:03

it up, suck it up, yeap, you know, and like

28:05

move on, move on, move on. Now

28:08

there's there's like ajournal of I mean,

28:10

good for her father, because what he was really telling

28:12

her was not forget about everything had happened.

28:14

What he was telling her was don't ruminate on

28:16

it, don't you know, go over

28:19

it again and again and again and and have it,

28:21

you know, create a constant source of sadness in your life.

28:23

On the contrary, you got to you got to keep moving.

28:25

And that's true. But here's the thing. Rumination

28:28

is not the same thing as understanding what

28:30

you want. When something bad happens to you, you

28:32

benefit from it tremendously if

28:34

you analyze it like a scientist. Yes, so

28:37

that's one of the reasons that I tell my students they keep

28:39

a failure journal like a disappointment

28:42

that we talked about in the book. Absolutely, we talked

28:44

about how you can do it. Yes, when something bad

28:46

happens, you write it down and think

28:48

about it. Don't ruminate on it. Don't have it be kind

28:50

of like a ghost, you know, around haunting

28:53

your the limbic system of your emotions. Then's

28:56

use it as an opportunity to think about what actually

28:58

happened. And when you do that, by the way, when you

29:00

think about it as if you were analyzing a problem

29:02

that somebody else had, this is something we're

29:05

talking a lot about in the book, then you

29:07

will learn and grow. So the point

29:09

is, don't ruminate. Understand.

29:12

That's the way that you can actually use the information.

29:15

Take the time to understand these things appropriately

29:17

and learning grow.

29:19

The second macro nutrient of happiness

29:22

satisfaction is that thrill from

29:24

accomplishing a goal you work for.

29:26

Is what you say? Why is satisfaction

29:28

also the key to getting happier.

29:30

We're made to make progress. Human

29:32

beings are made to make progress. We're

29:35

you know, we want to achieve.

29:38

The funny thing is that people always think, when I get to my goal,

29:41

then I'm going to be finally happy. But that commits that. That's

29:43

this incredible fallacy that's

29:45

called the arrival fallacy. You

29:47

know, like you and I are doing high fives because the book hit number

29:50

one in New York Times bestseller list. But if we're like, okay,

29:52

now Oprah and Arthur are going to be happy

29:54

forever, we're kidding ourselves.

29:56

No, next week we're going to be in doing a new project,

29:58

doing a new thing. That's the truth. The arrival

30:01

fallacy is once I finally get the money, once I

30:03

finally get the marriage, once I finally get the car of the

30:05

house to boat, then all will be well.

30:07

The truth is that the greatest joy

30:10

comes from the progress toward the accomplishment,

30:13

even in spite of the fact that it requires a lot of struggle.

30:15

Yeh, Satisfaction is that moment that

30:17

you hit it, which is a real moment of joy.

30:20

Now the paradox in that is it doesn't last,

30:22

and it can't last if you actually, if

30:24

you know.

30:25

That's why you couldn't get no satisfaction.

30:27

Yeah, that's right. And the truth is you can't keep no satisfaction.

30:30

That's the real problem. I mean, Mick Jagger had

30:32

it almost right.

30:33

That's what I was thinking. Jagger couldn't get no satisfaction.

30:35

That's right, I mean, and the truth is, if you couldn't

30:37

get it, you wouldn't keep trying and trying and trying. Like

30:39

he says. The problem is you can't keep no

30:42

satisfaction. And that's what seems kind

30:44

of like a bitter fruit with a satisfaction

30:46

dilemma. You need to struggle. If you don't struggle.

30:48

By the way, there is no satisfaction. If

30:50

my students cheat on my exam and

30:52

they get an A, there's no satisfaction, satisfaction.

30:55

They do an all nighter and they work really hard and they get an A, they're

30:57

like, yes, and you know how it

30:59

feels. I mean, you and I were we worked hard on

31:01

this book. Yeah, I mean it was it

31:03

was. It was a quick job, but real quick

31:05

turn.

31:06

And we were yeah, from the time

31:08

that it Yeah, it's miraculous from the time

31:11

we decided.

31:12

Chapter I don't know, and

31:14

it was, but then boom

31:17

and this satisfaction. Then the problem

31:20

is thinking that once we arrive, it's

31:22

going to be good forever, and then having a little

31:24

the frustration that comes from the

31:26

satisfaction is dispelled and there's

31:28

a way to fix there's a way to a round that. But once

31:30

again, you got to fight mother nature.

31:32

Okay, So you need enjoyment, you

31:34

need satisfaction, and you also

31:37

need purpose.

31:37

Those are the macro nutrients,

31:40

like.

31:40

The protein, carbohydrates and fat.

31:42

Okay, and and how

31:44

okay, so explain to people how the macro nutrients

31:47

fit into the pillars.

31:49

Yeah. So the macro nutrients are basically

31:51

the elements that we find that you need in balance

31:53

and abundance. You can't just have a life of enjoyment.

31:56

You also need satisfaction, you need goals, you need

31:58

to struggle, and you need meaning, which is the

32:00

why, the essence of your life. You need

32:02

those things. The happiest people have those three things

32:04

and they work on them. They take them seriously, and

32:06

we spend tons of time about how to actually do that.

32:08

Yeah, then this is why this is

32:10

so great. For y'all, and I

32:13

mean y'all meaning myself too, because when I

32:15

me and yeah, when we figured it

32:17

out. I mean, those are the

32:20

that's the baseline. You need enjoyment, you

32:22

need satisfaction, and you need meaning

32:24

and purpose, right, And let's talk about what meaning

32:26

and purpose means because I think people get all confused

32:29

about the purpose.

32:30

It like I don't know my purpose. I don't know my

32:32

purpose. Yeah.

32:33

So those macronutrients

32:35

are just like the macronutrients of food, the component parts

32:37

of food. Yeah, and then you got the dishes and the dinner,

32:39

which are the pillars that we'll talk about later, Okay,

32:41

the things to actually be focusing on the things that you're

32:43

working on. But the last macronutrient

32:45

is meaning or purpose. Meaning

32:48

is the essence of your life. You know, who

32:50

am I? It's this whole finding yourself

32:53

thing, right, Like I gotta find myself and people

32:55

from the beginning of time, it's like who

32:57

am I? Right? And that's a that's

32:59

no, that's no joke. That's a hard

33:01

thing to do. I mean some people believe that you could discover

33:04

it because of your essence precedes your

33:06

existence. Yes, I mean most religious

33:08

people, you know, people raised in the Christian faith

33:10

like you and me. I mean, we believe that we're made in God's image

33:12

and that's our essence and it precedes us.

33:14

Right.

33:15

Other people think that they can create their own essence.

33:17

This is you know, different philosophies believe. That's a tricky

33:19

one, right. Some people believe there is no essence. That's

33:21

a real problem, right. But the truth

33:23

of the matter is that to do that

33:26

And we talk about this in the book a little bit, that

33:29

there's a quiz that

33:32

you've got to give yourself and you have

33:34

to have real sincere answers to

33:36

two questions. Now, if you don't

33:38

have them, it means there's a crisis of meaning

33:41

in your life. But that's a good thing to

33:43

know that because then you have the opportunity to go in search

33:45

of just the answers to just two questions. Yeah,

33:48

question number one, why are you

33:50

alive? And again I can't tell you that.

33:52

I mean, it's like you gotta have your own answer to that, Yes, go

33:54

in search of that answer. In the second for

33:56

what are you willing to die today? And

34:00

the answer probably shouldn't be no food, right,

34:03

There's got to be something. And once you actually find the

34:05

answers to those questions. It's extraordinary,

34:07

Oprah. You know when you see this my you

34:10

know, you know a lot of my family

34:13

not my family, and one my son, you

34:15

haven't met yet because he's still an active duty

34:17

marine. He's a scout sniper in the US Marine

34:19

Corps. And you know he struggled in high

34:21

school because meaning you

34:23

know, it's like he was goofing off and

34:25

he wasn't even having fun because

34:27

he's like, who am I? So I

34:30

I'm a business school professor. I make my kids do a business

34:32

plan when they're a junior in high school, you

34:34

know, a business plan because the enterprise of life. Yeah,

34:37

and they're entrepreneurs. I'm VC,

34:39

I'm venture capital, so I deserve a business plan. I

34:42

realized it's pretty nerdy, but there you go.

34:44

I like it.

34:44

Yeah, and so they and if it's not original, I

34:46

send it back for revisions. Those are my

34:48

son, Carlos. He's a good boy, and

34:50

carl is like his business plans kind of. I

34:53

don't know. I don't believe it. So I say, you need

34:55

to find the answers to these questions. How are you going to find the answers

34:57

to these questions? So in his business plan, he says, I'm not going

34:59

to college, which is fine. I didn't either until

35:01

I was thirty. You know, I took me a long time to get

35:03

through college too. I wasn't ready. He went

35:05

to work on a farm. He spent two years

35:08

on a dry land wheat for in Idaho. Then

35:10

he joined the Marines. And

35:13

he's twenty three. Now he's married, and

35:15

he's got to going on and he's got answers

35:18

to those two questions. And I asked him, Carlos,

35:20

why were you born? Why are you alive? He

35:22

said, because God made me to serve. For

35:25

what are you willing to die today? He says,

35:27

for my family, for my faith, for

35:30

my friends, and for the United States of America.

35:34

Boom boom. And you know that's

35:37

not everybody's answers were watching us.

35:39

Yeah, but that boys got answers at three,

35:41

at twenty three, and his life is

35:44

different than it was. His life is

35:46

meaning it's beautiful. As

35:48

a father, I couldn't be prouder. I

35:50

couldn't be prouder of the enterprise that he's building

35:53

of his life. M he because you

35:55

know he's becoming a good man.

35:56

Yes, yes, yes, yes, I love that

35:58

you're the venture capitalist and bringing the plane.

36:01

Yeah all right, business school, Yeah,

36:03

okay.

36:04

Chapter two is entitle

36:07

the power of metacognition and

36:10

what I call field to feel and then

36:12

take the will explain medicognition.

36:14

I think this is just one of the biggest,

36:16

biggest, biggest contributions

36:20

to people getting

36:23

happier in their lives once you get the metacognition.

36:25

It's changed my life. Yeah, it's just changed my life.

36:27

And part of the reason is because people go through life relatively

36:30

unexamined in their emotions and just hoping

36:32

that their emotions will get better, and with a complete

36:35

inability to separate their

36:37

own essence from their emotions. And

36:39

that's a crazy thing to do. You're not your emotions.

36:42

Look, I'm not my hand, you

36:44

know. If it's it's I'm not my my hand

36:46

is not completely independent. It was like it's

36:49

like one of the whole horror movies. But that's how people

36:51

are with their emotions, where their emotions are controlling

36:53

them. Metacognition is thinking

36:56

about thinking. It's it's

36:58

the ability to look at your own self

37:00

with a certain intellectual remove

37:03

at a distance. It's putting distance between

37:05

your feelings and your reactions

37:08

and doing it on purpose. When you have

37:10

that ability, your life isn't going to

37:12

be the same. It just isn't because you're not going to wonder

37:15

like, is something bad gonna happen to tomorrow?

37:17

By the way, answer, yes, am

37:19

I going to feel bad about it? I'm going to decide

37:22

how I'm gonna work on this. I'm going to decide my

37:24

reactions. I'm going to substitute emotions

37:26

that are more appropriate for what I'm doing. Now, you

37:28

have emotions for a reason, you're not going to block them

37:30

out. But once you have metacognitive

37:33

skill where you can put space between

37:36

the emotions that are simply signals from your brain

37:38

about what's going on around you.

37:40

And the emotions are there to tell

37:42

you that something's off, is just and you need

37:44

to do something. It's it's just that

37:47

your emotions are just information.

37:49

They are.

37:49

You can get that, and if you.

37:51

Can separate yourself from

37:54

the thing that you're feeling, feel

37:56

the feeling and then take control

37:58

exactly right.

37:59

And the way that you do that is by putting space between

38:01

the emotions and your reactions. Tell us how to do that,

38:04

So you do that by by studying

38:06

yourself.

38:07

Now, no don't you that Also

38:09

by observing the feeling

38:12

exactly as though it were happening, is somebody

38:15

else's how you do you identify what this feeling as

38:17

you say, oh, gosh, I'm

38:19

feeling so sad right now, I'm feeling so

38:21

put upon, I'm feeling so betrayed,

38:24

whatever it is. But you separate

38:27

that feeling from yourself.

38:29

You're observing all those feelings inside

38:31

your body so that you see that the feeling

38:33

is really different from you.

38:34

You're in control of the feeling.

38:36

Exactly way, and you're you're able to react in an appropriate

38:38

way. I mean, it's that we're so maladapted to the way

38:40

that our feelings occur to us. I mean I talk to

38:42

people all the time where once again back to

38:44

social media, Yeah, I got a bad

38:46

tweet and what are to do?

38:48

It?

38:48

It raised your stress hormones

38:50

or through the roof. You've got butterflies in your stomach

38:52

and the whole thing. The reason for that is because nature

38:55

wants you to run away from a saber tooth tiger

38:58

by injecting stress hormones in your system

39:00

when you think there's a threat but or

39:03

you don't want to wander the frozen tundra

39:05

and die alone. But you know, folks, look around,

39:07

no tundra, Twitter's not ton And

39:09

so the result is metacognition is very

39:12

important so that we can we make it feel like it

39:14

sure, And if you don't have an examined life, yes,

39:16

then you're not going to be able to make those distinctions. And

39:18

so you can actually laugh at yourself when you're

39:21

actually observing your own emotions

39:23

at a certain remove, as if they were happening to another

39:25

person, and you see yourself freaking out because of a tweet,

39:27

you will start laughing. You will

39:29

start You'll be like, really, Arthur,

39:32

really really, Yeah, you're you're really I mean, it's like you're

39:34

a grown man. You have

39:36

a PhD or social scientist. You're supposed

39:39

to know all this stuff. And somebody said a mean thing

39:41

to you on Twitter, and you're acting as if you know

39:43

an axe murder is chasing you. Come

39:45

on, man, and it's just funny

39:48

and life gets better. And that's what metacognition

39:50

can do for all of us if we have the right techniques.

39:52

Okay, so let's explain the emotional

39:55

caffeine metaphor you mentioned on page seventy

39:57

one.

39:58

We all love this the first time we heard it.

40:00

Tell us about it. So emotional

40:02

caffeine. This is just a metaphor. Most

40:04

people of something like ninety five percent of Americans

40:08

use caffeine on a regular basis. I'm

40:10

crazy about coffee. I lived. I grew up next

40:12

to the first Starbucks in the world in the

40:14

nineteen seventies. There was one Starbucks. My house

40:16

was near it. I've been drinking in Seattle.

40:19

Yeah. I grewu to Seattle on in

40:21

the queen An neighborhood and he us to walk down to Pike Place

40:23

mart. Yeah, the first one. Yeah. I've

40:25

talked to Howard Schultz about this. He thinks it's quite charming.

40:27

But I've been drinking caffeine, I mean taking caffeine

40:30

regularly since I was seventh grade, which

40:32

means I have the most enervated adrenal

40:34

system. And who knows. I mean, it's like the

40:36

autopsy is going to be a fun time anyway.

40:39

So, but what happens with your brain is

40:41

you think it PEPs you up because it gives you all this energy. Is

40:43

not what it does. Is it blocks

40:46

another neurotransmitter called a dentisine.

40:48

A dentisine is a neurotransmitter that's floating

40:51

around your brain that goes into these certain receptors

40:53

and it mellows you out. So it makes

40:55

you when you have time to be tired, time to lower

40:57

your energy. Whatever it is. The problem

41:00

is you got too much of it, Like in the morning, you're

41:02

feeling kind of lethargic, too much a dentisine feeling

41:04

those receptors. You get this caffeine where the

41:06

molecule is the same size

41:08

and shape and it goes into the parking spots

41:11

for the a dent scene blocking it. So

41:13

it just can't mellow you out. That's what caffeine

41:16

does. It blocks the neurotransmitter

41:19

that you don't want. That's what it's

41:21

doing. So it's not up, it's

41:23

not it's preventing you from being perked

41:25

down. That's that's not an expression.

41:28

Is it to mellow you out? You don't want to be too much.

41:30

There's happierness. We can be perked down too, creating

41:33

language.

41:35

I love it. So so that's what it's. And so the reason I

41:37

use that particular metaphor, and

41:39

you and I talk about this metaphor in the book, is

41:41

because that's what you can do once

41:43

you're a metacognitive and you're aware of

41:45

your own emotions, and you're studying your own emotions.

41:48

So many times throughout life you've got a particular

41:50

emotion, but it's not the emotion you want. Choose

41:53

another one, choose.

41:55

So you should have a store, like a

41:57

little storage of better

42:00

emotions, repertoire.

42:01

You need a better repetoi.

42:03

That's right, a repertoire better

42:05

emotions.

42:06

So when you're in a funk, when you're perked

42:09

down, you can go to something

42:11

that.

42:11

Perks you up, exactly right. You can actually

42:13

block the anxiety and depression.

42:16

Give me an example.

42:17

So, and it's an example from a mutual

42:19

friend of ours, Rain Wilson. You know, the actor who

42:21

is in the office. Yeah, he I

42:24

noticed, you know, just through basic observation,

42:27

that a lot of professional comedians

42:29

are depressed. So I said, hey, man, what

42:32

is it about professional comedy that

42:34

bums you out so much? That makes you melancholic?

42:36

And he said, no, no, you got it wrong. It's

42:38

the opposite, is that we tend

42:41

toward depression and we make a joke

42:43

when we feel down, and that solves the problem.

42:47

That's emotional caffeine. When

42:49

you make a joke and other people laugh. Life

42:51

gets better. You lighten somebody else's

42:53

load, and you lighten your own load, and you

42:55

get relief. You get a little cup

42:57

of Starbucks dark roast at that moment.

42:59

Is it also sort of like you know when

43:02

I every time anybody

43:04

knows this too. I'm sure this happens to you. You

43:06

go to the doctor, the blood pressure

43:09

cuff goes on. My blood pressure

43:11

immediately goes up when I see the blood pressure

43:13

cover coming.

43:14

I got the way. I definitely have the white coat syndrome.

43:16

I've literally I go to Cleveland

43:18

clinic like once a year and they leave

43:21

me in the room for a few minutes before so

43:23

I can calm myself down because I got the

43:25

white coat syndrome. And I start thinking about

43:27

every happy thing. Walking in the woods with

43:29

my dogs. I've always loved

43:31

water sprinklers on a green lawn, you know, when

43:34

you're walking and you can see the rainbow in the water.

43:36

So I start I have like this little

43:39

storage, just a little place.

43:40

Yeah, a little repertoire of things to

43:43

calm me down to think about.

43:45

So is that what emotional caffeine.

43:46

Emotional caffeine works exactly that way, And the key

43:49

thing is thinking about the things, the

43:51

things that the bew you know, the

43:54

particular experiences that you have that are the problematic

43:56

emotions that are that are maladapted. They're

43:58

not exact, they're not the wrong emotion, they're just the emotion.

44:01

It's just information. Yeah, But you can have another

44:03

emotion that's also extremely appropriate

44:05

and choose that. If you're studying yourself

44:07

and you've got distance between your

44:09

reaction and to what you're feeling. If you're very reactive,

44:12

if you're like a little kid, you know, you're angry, you yell,

44:14

you're sad, you cry without thinking about it.

44:17

On the contrary, when you're something is,

44:19

it's and and it's fine. I mean, we like spontaneous

44:21

people, but that's no way to live, you know, when

44:23

when you have little kids. When my kids were little,

44:26

my wife and I would say, use your words.

44:28

Let's say being metacognitive. That's

44:30

what that really means, because when you use your words, you've

44:32

moved the experience of the emotion into your prefrontal

44:35

cortex, into your executive brain,

44:37

and there you can make decisions like emotional caffeine.

44:40

You can you can decide on on on different

44:42

emotions that are more appropriate to the circumstances.

44:44

So here's a you.

44:45

Can think of better thought.

44:46

You can think a better thought, and you can think.

44:48

A better thought if you have a

44:50

repertoire, a thought to go to

44:52

to think. It's hard to think

44:54

a better thought when you're in the midst of the if

44:56

you're all down.

44:57

So give yourself some space, get some space

45:00

in there and say, okay, huh, I'm gonna go to the

45:02

library. I'm gonna pick out that one. Here's a classic

45:04

one that you do all you do super well, I've seen

45:06

it.

45:06

You do it again and yeah, yeah, yeah, right, you're talking about.

45:09

Talk about ut Yeah.

45:11

Yeah.

45:11

So we feel resentment and we feel

45:13

bitterness or we feel anger a lot,

45:16

and the reason is because we're evolved to have

45:18

those as dominant emotions. This is called the negativity

45:21

bias. The negativity bias

45:24

is that, you know, we actually have more brain

45:26

space dedicated to producing emotions that are

45:28

negative than positive, because negative

45:30

emotions on the place to scene keep you alive.

45:33

Yeah, somebody smiling sweetly at you

45:35

in the tribe, that's great. Somebody

45:37

frowning at you might be a big problem when

45:39

you step outside, and you.

45:40

Will remember that frown longer than you remember

45:42

the twelve people who smiled.

45:44

Oh yes, oh yeah, because that's evolved

45:46

to keep you alive. The problem is hugely

45:48

maladapted and what it'll ruin

45:50

big parts of our lives. Yeah, because we're so

45:53

we're negative all the time. It's also unrealistic,

45:55

the truth.

45:56

It's why in the beginning of the Oprah Show, when we

45:58

were still just you know, taking

46:00

phone calls and people were writing real letters

46:03

by snail mail, if somebody wrote something

46:05

negative or said something, I would track

46:07

them down.

46:08

I'd get a thousand great

46:10

letters.

46:11

I wouldn't respond but oh that's nice,

46:13

that's nice, that's nice, and one negative

46:15

thing. I would track them down. I'd

46:18

find them in Louisiana.

46:19

Alabama, wherever you were. I'm

46:22

gonna and.

46:22

Then call them up and say, excuse

46:24

me, this is Oprah calling and they're like, what I

46:26

know.

46:27

It's like I know, yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

46:29

But you know, there's a there's a lot of literature

46:31

on this. Social scientists and looks at us a lot. If

46:33

you're out for dinner with your friends having a great

46:35

old time and there's one point

46:38

of disagreement, that's what you remember

46:40

from the whole night that's.

46:42

The thing saying stays with you.

46:44

Right Thanksgiving dinner when you know Aunt

46:46

Mabel, yeah something, you know, she

46:48

she she went after you know, her

46:50

nephew Jake because you know they disagreed about

46:53

President Trump or something like that. And that's

46:55

what everybody's like, Oh, that was the Thanksgiving or Aunt

46:57

Mabel went berserk about politics or

46:59

something. That's what you remember about.

47:01

Because we can't invite An Mabel again.

47:02

Yeah, because of that thing happened. You had a great time

47:05

for three hours or four hours, and it was

47:07

like three minutes. But the negativity

47:09

bias, man, that's like a blinking life and.

47:12

We are so you're saying we're born that way.

47:13

We're born that way. Absolutely, we're born that way.

47:16

And sometimes it's great because it saves

47:18

your life. But a lot of times it just embitters

47:20

beautiful things and it's unrealistic.

47:22

It's not even right. Yeah, you know the truth is

47:24

a lot of the times we're feeling resentment because it's

47:26

like, can you believe the quality of this airline

47:28

food. It's like, dude,

47:32

you're getting all the way across the country

47:35

in six hours on your middle

47:38

class salary and you're complaining about

47:40

the fact that you don't like the food it's

47:45

nuts, or it's like can you believe it's it's a little bit

47:47

too cold on this plane, or you know whatever it happens to be.

47:49

That that we say that people just allow

47:51

themselves to be absorbed by that.

47:52

Yeah. I mean, we have this incredibly

47:55

privileged lives. I get it that we also have

47:57

problems and we have suffering and not everything is perfect

47:59

and all that, but on balance in modern

48:01

life most of the time is pretty good. Yeah. Yeah,

48:03

yeah, And this is the point that we can actually get that. I've

48:05

seen you do this a bunch of times.

48:07

Oh. The gratitude thing is huge.

48:09

And I know it's been since you were a little kid. Yeah,

48:11

right, that you basically, when you feel the

48:13

resentment welling up inside you, when

48:15

you feel the anger, even when you feel

48:18

fear, that's when you start to

48:20

That's when you start to reflect on the

48:22

sources of heath and not.

48:23

Just reflect because it's not not enough sometimes

48:25

just to like think about it. I actually

48:28

I have volumes of gratitude

48:30

journals.

48:31

Right, this is a really good thing because this is the.

48:32

Volumes of gratitude journals.

48:34

And now I hear like everybody talking

48:37

about it, and I see these reels where people are talking

48:39

about gratitude. I've been doing it for years

48:41

and years and years.

48:42

Yeah, and when you write it down, by the way, it

48:44

can't stay in your limbic system. Then it's

48:46

in your prefrontal cortex. The act of writing

48:49

something down and putting it into words puts

48:51

it into the executive centers in your brain and

48:54

it sits there. I mean, this is in your memory banks. At

48:56

this point, you're really going to use it, and you

48:58

have it in the most conscious, metacognitive

49:00

way possible. This is the mac Gratitude

49:02

journals are great. Everybody should keep

49:04

a gratitude journal. I the failure

49:07

journal is fantastic. We talk about it in the book and all ways

49:09

that you can take your sources of disgust and discontent

49:11

and turn them into learning and growth.

49:13

Yeah.

49:13

But the gratitude journal is a must for

49:16

everybody, and there are a lot of ways to do it. You

49:18

know. The easiest way is every Sunday night,

49:20

write down five things you're grateful for. It doesn't matter

49:22

how stupid they are. It's like my team

49:24

one, right, I ate a three Musketeers

49:27

bars with my cousins. Yes, like you said, right,

49:29

yeah, whatever it happens to be that delights your heart

49:31

a little bit. And then you know, Monday through

49:33

Saturday, look at those things and ponder

49:35

them a little bit, give up, maybe a word of thanks,

49:38

maybe a little prayer. Sunday update

49:40

it. The data say that on average, after ten

49:43

weeks you'll be twelve percent happier.

49:45

I believe that, yeah, And I believe that

49:47

in the moment when you are feeling

49:49

the worst, if you can just take

49:51

a deep breath and go to the thing that

49:54

first of all, grateful for your breath, right, and

49:57

start you know, actualizing

50:00

for yourself. And you're saying writing down is more

50:02

important than just thinking about it. The

50:04

things you're grateful, you can feel your own vibration

50:07

change.

50:07

Yeah, yeah, for sure, Yeah absolutely.

50:09

But for me also a walk in nature too.

50:11

Yeah, there's a lot of work on that. It's really

50:14

interesting to begin with. That's a that's almost

50:16

a form of worship for a lot of people.

50:18

It is for me.

50:19

You and I have walked here and

50:22

and it was sort of magic. I remember that we were working

50:24

super hard on cooking up this book

50:26

and we walked all they were really really super time and then we

50:29

took a long walk on twilight.

50:30

Yeah.

50:30

It was so beautiful, right, yeah, because everything

50:32

was crazy.

50:33

Is a picture of that?

50:33

Yeah, there is a picture of that. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

50:35

And it was somebody took a picture of us. It wasn't

50:37

us, but it wasn't staged. Yeah, and it was

50:40

it was I remember, it was relaxed and it was

50:42

nice. And some researchers

50:44

are asking what it is about the experience

50:47

of touching nature and

50:49

that you can even get more if you're barefoot.

50:52

That's a that's a whole thing called grounding that

50:55

I've heard of that, you know, as a social scientist, I'm

50:57

like, but you know, it's funny. The

50:59

data are actually quite compelling that.

51:01

There's there's some truth to that.

51:02

There appears to be that, you know, your feet on the grass

51:04

and soil, I mean, actually touching

51:07

the grass and soil has a particularly profound

51:09

impact physiologically on the what

51:11

we're experiencing.

51:12

That's really interesting because I enjoy walking

51:14

outside barefoot on the grass. But I

51:17

thought it was because that's

51:19

the way I was raised, you know, back

51:21

to your Yeah, Mississippi. I thought it was like dirt

51:23

road, Mississippi, and you're just just

51:26

like a primal thing.

51:26

I didn't know that it was.

51:27

Yeah, no, there's there's there's work on that. And I do a

51:29

lot of people, a lot of us remember when we were kids

51:32

that you know, out in the backyard or you know, in

51:34

the neighborhood and running around with our bare

51:36

feet, and it brings us back to those particular times.

51:39

You can smell certain things from your childhood, but

51:41

there is more to it than that. There scientists

51:43

believe that there is more to the experience

51:45

of touching nature than that. A lot of times

51:49

I wind up giving a lot of counsel and support to

51:51

young people who are in their twenties and

51:53

they feel quite lost, and I get it,

51:55

you know. There they don't they don't know the why their life. They

51:58

haven't haven't read our book yet, you

52:00

know, and uh. And so one of the

52:02

things that I'll tell them to do is to go on a process

52:04

of discernment about their life to understand

52:06

meaning of life. And one of the best ways to do it,

52:09

I recommend to everybody, but not just young people,

52:11

is to get up before dawn it's

52:14

hard for some people and walk for an hour

52:16

as the sun comes up. There's

52:18

something profoundly mystical. It's

52:21

cooler, it's quiet.

52:23

You're alone with your thoughts, no devices, no podcasts

52:26

except this one. Do

52:29

that, just with with

52:30

the with the sounds

52:32

in your head, with the music of I.

52:35

Know somebody who does that every day.

52:37

It's super important to do that. That's actually one

52:39

of the ways that you can satisfy the you

52:42

know, the spiritual element of what a

52:44

good and happy life actually needs. A transcendent

52:46

life, one that transcends your day to day

52:49

Quotitian ordinary, boring,

52:52

you know, work.

52:52

Existence, because you get to see how

52:55

small you are and compared to the largeness

52:58

of everything else.

52:59

I'm alive, Yeah, I'm

53:01

alive. I don't know what the stay will bring. I

53:04

don't know, And that's okay. I'm

53:07

just really grateful to be alive, to stay

53:10

and to be walking on

53:12

this road at this moment and to see the

53:14

sun rising. It puts you in a state of awe.

53:16

It puts you in a moment of peace. And if that becomes

53:19

a product, and by the way, you get ten thousand steps, that's a good

53:21

thing to do too.

53:22

Okay. So that's a good place to end,

53:24

right.

53:25

That's all the happiness we can squeeze into our first

53:27

episode. We've only just begun. Remember

53:30

that song I did, We've only just begun?

53:32

Who saying it? Carverringers,

53:35

thank you.

53:36

I mean, it's like I was a classical musician growing up.

53:38

It's like I was raised there. I know, I

53:41

know, but I was like every freaking wedding

53:43

for every no I know, you know who

53:45

knows we play bock at our wedding.

53:47

Okay, So my gratitude to you and

53:50

to all of our readers for their thoughtful questions.

53:52

Guys, and we so appreciate that you're

53:54

reading the book. I think I just want to

53:56

say this. I think this is

53:58

a great gift idea for your loved ones.

54:01

There's something in here for everybody. I

54:04

am not just saying that, I think I

54:06

actually today sent three copies off to

54:09

people that I know and I think will benefit from it. So

54:12

next up episode two of our three part build

54:14

a Life You Want series, and we'll be discussing chapters

54:16

four and five specific strategies

54:19

for you to start taking action and

54:22

building what matters to you. So

54:24

thank you, Arthur, thank you Oprah, See y'all

54:26

next time.

54:32

Thanks to our episode sponsor, the Hartford